Many items are widely used as wipes and applicators for wiping or applying substances from or to surfaces such as those on a human, e.g., skin, finger nails, toe nails, or in a human, e.g., internal organs and bones during a surgical operation. These items are widely used in both medical and non-medical fields. Small cotton or rayon balls, pads or gauzes are perhaps the most widely used items for these purposes on the market today. Small sponges are also widely used items.
In the medical field, these items are used for cleaning the skin and other surfaces, such as the surfaces of internal organs, by the application of a disinfectant or solvent and/or the wiping away of blood and other fluids, including other body fluids, and other materials. The cotton balls, sponges and gauze pads are grasped between the fingers and applied to the area of concern to wipe away or apply fluids or other materials. One problem with this prior art approach is that the fingers can easily come into contact with the fluid being applied or wiped. In light of infectious diseases such as AIDS and hepatitis contact between a care provider and a patient should be avoided.
In the cosmetics and personal care fields, cotton balls and the like are widely used to apply and to remove makeup and to apply other personal care products such as lotions, creams and nail polish remover. Unfortunately, the item transfers the makeup or personal came product to the user's finger which is often undesirable. For example, when a nail polish remover, which is usually acetone or acetate based, is being used it can be transferred to the fingers of the hand holding the item. The nail polish remover can harm the fingers and remove the nail polish from the user's finger nails on the hand holding the item even if removal from these nails was not desired. Also, the nail polish remover can undesirably remove nail polish from a finger nail adjacent to the finger from which the nail polish is being removed. Also, the transfer can result in a waste of the makeup or personal care product.
These items are often amorphous in that they have no defined shape and therefore no defined edges. Thus, these items are not ideally suited to apply or wipe materials to or from surfaces that have an arcuate edge, e.g., finger nails, and from surfaces that have straight edges, e.g., the edge formed between the nose and cheek. Other items only have arcuate or straight edges and are not very effective when surfaces having a different shape are encountered.
One example of the prior art approach is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,053,242, entitled "Disposable Product Applicator and Dispensing Package Therefor", issued Oct. 11, 1977 to Mast, Jr. Another example of applicators is illustrated in the Jones, Sr. U.S. Pat. No. 3,784,998, entitled "Composition Applicator" and its companion case U.S. Pat. No. 3,737,939 having substantially identical disclosures. Other prior attempts include U.S. Pat. No. Re. 26,385, to Gilchrist issued May 7, 1968, which discloses a liquid and paste applicator formed by sheets of foam; and U.S. Pat. No. 4,506,404 to Clay which discloses a disposable sponge having a planar body portion and a pair of upstanding rib members spaced close enough that they may be grasped and squeezed against each other by the hand to form a handle or grip.
It is desirable to manufacture an improved laminated pad suitable for use as an applicator or wipe that overcomes at least some of the aforementioned shortcomings in a cost effective manner.